PILLOW OF CLOUDS

By an experienced novelist for young people, a thoughtful examination of a boy forced into a painful decision. Under the terms of his parents' divorce, Chester must choose, at 13, with whom he will live. A summer in Santa Fe persuades him that he prefers his father, who runs a small bookstore and lives with an artist. Returning to Iowa to tell his rich, neurotic mother, he is at first trapped by her need, but is released when a telephone call from his father reveals his choice. Chester goes back to Santa Fe—only to be confronted, as he begins to settle in, with his mother's attempted suicide. Plot here is less compelling than characterization and atmosphere. Talbert's description of New Mexico is especially vivid; the other characters take form in Chester's mind as he ponders his reactions to each new emotional dilemma. A reflective, slow-moving, but rewarding portrait of a boy coming to terms with the adults around him.~(Fiction. 12+)